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PS 1294 
.C56 S7 
1899 



OATE STOK 



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Copy 1 CLEMENS, Author of " Life of Mark Twain," " Depew Story Book," etc. | 



WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH | 

OF HON. ]OSEPH H. CHOATE 




HON. lOSEPH H. CHOATE 

{From a Portrait by Samny) 



The Montgomery Publishing Company 

23 PARK ROW. NEW YORK 



f ..Ji.j con, 



X 



1^. 



THE CHOATE 

STORY BOOK. 

WITH A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF 

HON. JOSEPH H. CHOATE. 



BY 



WILL M. CLEMENS, 

A uthor of ''The Depeiu Story Book," " The Mark Twain Story Book, 

' The Life of Theodore Roosevelt," ''The Life of Rear Admiral 

George De^vey," "A Ken 0/ Kipling," etc., etc. 



THE MONTGOMERY PUBLISHING CO, 
23 Park Row, New York. 






■r.iiss 



Copyright. 1899. 

BY 

WILL M. CLEMENS, 
In the United States, Great Britain and the Colonies. 

All Rights Reserved. 



COPIFS RSC£IV£D 



( JUMU1899 I 






FOREWORDS. 

This little compendium needs no words oi 
introduction. The wit mid eloquence of 
Joseph H. Choate speak for themselves. In 
the law, in politics and literature, he is a 
shining light among Americans. An account 
of bis life and his work, and specimens of his 
wit and wisdom, are well worthy of a col- 
lected and permanent form. 



CONTENTS. 



PAGE 

I. A Biographical Sketch 7 

II. In Jest AND Earnest 28 

Yale and Harvard 28 

Hash 28 

Female Beauty 28 

On His Ambassadorship 29 

Embarrassed 29 

On Judicial Learning 29 

Plain Living 30 

On General Grant 30 

Boys Who Go Wrong 31 

Money and Insurance 31 

On Ruf us Choate , 33 

Seats foi the Mighty 32 

Af ter-Dinner Oratory 32 

A Mountain of Debt 33 

The Pilgrim Mothers 33 

Mrs Choate's Second Hvisband 34 

Legal Wit 34 

On the Future of America 35 

Russell Sage 35 

Rebuking a Chief Justice 33 



vi CONTENTS. 

II. In Jest and Earnest — Continued. page 

Choate and Depew 37 

On Dr. Depew 37 

Millionaires 38 

A Home Beyond the Grave 38 

On Penuriousness 39 

Winning a Verdict 40 

The House that Jack Built 40 

Retort of a Witness 41 

On Lord Aberdeen 42 

Natural Gas 43 

On Clarence Cook 43 

Family Prayers 44 

Letter of Introduction 45 

A Debt of Gratitude, 46 

On Roscoe Conkling 46 

New England Patriotism 47 

The Saloon 48 

On William M. Evarts 49 

In the Supeme Court 50 

On Vampires 51 

The Legal Profession 52 

On Porter and Depew 54 

The AUbi 55 

On the Pilgrims 57 

Richard Croker 58 

Old Ireland • 60 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK, 



A BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Joseph Hodges Choate was born at Sa- 
lem, Massachusetts, Janiiary 24, 1832. He was 
the youngest of four brothers. His father was 
Dr. George Choate, and his mother Margaret 
Manning Hodges. 

The Choates have an interesting lineage 
traceable centuries back from France, through 
Holland to England, and thence to Ipswich, 
Massachusetts. The family was one of the old- 
est in New England. The earliest ancestor, 
John Choate, became a citizen of Massachusetts 
in 1G67. The grandson of this first ancestor, 
also named John, was a member of the Massa- 
chusetts Legislature from 1741 till 1761, and 
for the five years following a member of the 



8 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

Governor's Council. The family was noted 
throughout for its strength of character and 
mental vigor. 

None bearing the honored name has achieved 
the celebrity, however, of Rufus Choate, that 
great legal light of New England, and none 
hold him in greater reverence than his equally 
distinguished nephew, Joseph H. Choate, who, 
at the unveiling of the statue of his uncle in the 
Suffolk County Courthouse, of Boston, showed 
loving admiration and just pride in his eloquent 
tribute. In speaking of the lineage and train- 
ing of the elder Choate, he said : 

"He came of a long line of pious and devout 
ancestors, whose living was as plain as their 
thinking was high. It was from father and 
mother that he derived the flame of intellect, 
the glow of spirit, and the beauty of tempera- 
ment that was so unique. And his nurture to 
manhood was worthy of the child. It was the 
'nurture and admonition of the Lord.' From 
that rough, pine cradle, which is still preserved 
in the room where he was born, to his prema- 
ture grave, at the age of fifty-nine, it was one 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK- 9 

long course of training and discipline of mind 
and character, without pause or rest. It began 
with that well-thumbed and dog's-eared Bible 
from Hog Island, its leaves actually worn 
away by the pious hands that had turned them ; 
i:ead daily in the family from January to De- 
cember, in at Genesis and out at Revelation 
every two years; and when a child was born 
in the household the only celebration, the only 
festivity, was to turn back to the first chapter 
and read once more how 'in the beginning God 
created the heaven and the earth, and all that 
in them is.' 

"And upon this solid rock of the Scriptures he 
built a magnificent structure of knowledge and 
acquirement, to which few men in America 
have attained, . . . His splendid and 
blazing intellect, fed and enriched by constant 
stud}'' of the best thoughts of the great mmds 
of the race, his all-persuasive eloquence, his 
teeming and radiant imagination, whirling his 
hearers along with it and sometimes overpower- 
ing himself, his brilliant and sportive fancy 
lighting up the most arid subjects with the 



10 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

glow of sunrise, his prodigious and never-fail- 
ing memorj", and his playful wit always burst- 
ing forth with irresistible impulse, have been 
the subject of scores of essays and criticisms, 
all struggling with the vain effort to describe 
and crystallize the fascinating and magical 
charm of his speech and his influence." 

It may be well to briefly state that Rufus 
Choate was born in Essex, Massachusetts, Oc- 
tober 1, 1799. He entered Dartmouth College 
in 1S15, becoming a tutor there on graduation. 
He studied in the Cambridge Law School, and 
commenced practicing in Danvers in 18'^4, He 
was elected to the legislature in 1825, to the 
State Senate in 1827, and to Congress in 1832. 
He was elected to the United States Senate in 
1841 on Webster's retirement, and resigned in 
1845. He practiced in Boston from that time 
until he died, July 13, 1859. 

It has been said of Rufus Choate that the wit 
of all other American advocates could not ex- 
ceed his. In reply to counsel who said that his 
client did not come by his patent naturally, he 
exclaimed: "Naturally! Why, we don't do any- 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 11 

thing naturally. Why, naturally a man would 
walk down Washington street with his panta- 
loons off." Thus he described the indefinite 
boundary line between Rhode Island and Mas- 
sachusetts : "It is like starting at a bush, thence 
to a blue jay, thence to a hive of bees in swarm- 
ing time, thence to three hundred foxes with 
firebrands on their tails." Of a party in a 
suit: "Why doesn't he pay back the money he 
has so ill got? He is so much of a villain that 
he wouldn't if he could, and so much of a bank- 
rupt that he couldn't if he would." Of a 
crooked flight of stairs : "How drunk a man 
must be to climb those stairs." Of a woman: 
"She is a sinner — no, not a sinner, for she is 
our client; but she is a very disagreeable saint." 
Of an improbable narrative he said: "The 
story is as unlike truth as a pebble is like a star 
— a witch's broomstick unlike a banner staff." 
Of a cunning witness: "He is quick, keen, 
knows when to hold his tongue with the cun- 
ning of a bushy-tailed fox — all's right." Of an 
unsea worthy vessel: "The vessel, after leaving 
the smooth water of Boston harbor, encoun- 



12 THE CIIOATE STORY BOOK. 

tered the eternal motion of the ocean which has 
been there from creation, and will be thereuntil 
land and sea shall be no more. She went down 
the harbor a painted and perfidious thing, soul- 
freighted, but a coffin for the living, a coffin 
for the dead." 

This storj" of Rufus Choate is recalled: By 
Overwork he had shattered his health. Edward 
Everett expostulated with him on one occasion, 
saying : 

"My dear friend, if you are not more self- 
considerate, you will ruin your constitution." 

"Oh," replied the legal wag, "the constitu- 
tion was destroyed long ago. I'm living on 
the by-laws. ' ' 

Like the great Daniel Webster, and many 
other men of genius, he had the reputation of 
being careless in his own money matters. A 
Middlesex lawyer, calling upon him on business, 
expressed his astonishment at the extent of 
Choate's library. "Yes," he said, "more books 
than I can pay for — that's the bookseller's mat- 
ter, not mine." There is a story that Webster 
once met him in front of the Merchants' Bank 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 13 



and called to him: "Come here, I want 

I want you to endorse my note.'' "Make it 

$1,000," said Choate; "I want $500, too." 

One can readily see to what extent ancestry 
has bestowed upon Joseph H. Choate. In 
mind he is a counterpart of his illustrious un- 
cle, hut in personal appearance he diiTers 
greatly from Rufus Choate. "Rufus was tall, 
skinny, dark, cavernous, hairy, explosive and 
eccentric," says Joe Howard; "Joseph is tall, 
well-proportioned, with a medium head of hair, 
courteous, affable, jocular, sarcastic and tem- 
perate. ' ' 

Little is recorded of Joseph Choate's boy- 
hood. That he was precocious is amply attested 
by the fact that he entered Harvard at the age 
of sixteen, and while a student at Harvard he 
was a participant in no less than twenty-four 
public debates, and he won them all. Mr. 
Choate was the most brilliaDt student at the 
university. He was graduated at the head of 
his class in 1852, and two years later gradu- 
ated from the Harvard Law School. 

While in college he became a member of the 



14 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

Alpha Delta Phi society, and in his later life 
was president of the Alpha Delta Phi club in 
New York City. His brother, William Gardner 
Choate, who became United States judge for 
the southern district of New York State, went 
through college and the law school with 
him. 

After studying in a Boston lawyer's office 
for a few months, he was admitted to the Mas- 
sachusetts bar in 1855. In the fall of that year 
he visited various Western States, and then re- 
turned to New York. His first year in the me- 
tropolis was passed in the office of the firm of 
which James C. Carter was a member. When 
he had mastered the New York code he formed 
a partnership with W. H. L. Barnes, Esq. This 
connection continued ior four years until, June 
1, 1859, he found his permanent professional 
home with the great firm of Evarts, Southmayd 
& Choate, which succeeded Butler, Evarts & 
Southmayd, and afterward became Evarts, 
Choate & Beaman. Mr. Evarts was then in 
the prime of his powers. It was a great advan- 
tage and a great trial for a young lawyer to be 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 15 

aaeociated with men of this stamp, and Mr. 
Cboate reaped the full advantage. 

The period in which Mr. Choate began his 
career in New York is commonly referred to as 
the golden age of the metropolitan bar. James 
T. Brady was a conspicuous figure in the popu- 
lar eye; Charles O'Connor had already made a 
deep and lasting impression; William M. 
Evarts was in the front rank of politics, as well 
as of law. 

It was not very long ago that Joseph H. 
Choate, chatting in a club with some lawyers 
about his career, said: 

"I came to New York absolutely unknown, 
with no money. In fact, I had nothing but my 
diploma, and a letter from my uncle to W. M. 
Evarts." 

Whereat there was great laughter, for each 
of those who heard knew that a letter from 
Rufus Choate was worth more than many thou- 
sands of dollars. For Rufus Choate was prob- 
ably the greatest legal genius the country has 
known. 

In 1861 Mr. Choate married Miss Caroline 



16 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK, 

W. Sterling, who was a native of Cleveland, 
Ohio. There is a bit of romance connected with 
her girlhood. In 1850 Fred A. Sterling, Sr., 
and wife, moved to Cleveland, taking up their 
home in a small frame house on Euclid Avenue. 
Their children were Fred A. Sterling, Pro- 
fessor Theo, Sterling, of Kenyon College, and 
Caroline W. Sterling. Caroline was a popular 
young woman. Miss Sterling became a devo- 
tee of art. She studied painting. She went to 
New York to study with Thomas Rossiter. 
Her study began, but she met the young law- 
yer, Mr. Choate. Their friendship ripened. 
Then came the announcement that they Avould be 
married. The ceremony took place in New 
York. Mrs. Choate gave up her art, but not 
her love of it. Mr. and Mrs. Choate have three 
children, George, Joseph and Mabel. The son, 
Joseph H. Choate, Jr., was class-day poet at 
Harvard in June, 1808. Forty-five years be- 
fore that month his father was salutatorian of 
his class at the same university. 

During his long career as a lawyer, Mr. 
Choate has been engaged in a large number of 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 17 

important cases — memorable in the legal an- 
nals and even in the history of the United 
States. His solidity, his learning, and his 
power in cross-examination have given him his 
pre-eminence, but he has oratorical gifts as well 
— often more feared than admired, it is said; 
stinging sarcasm being one of them. "The fees 
paid to him," it is added by an acquaintance, 
"have established a record, and there is hardly 
a famous case but he has had some hand in 
it." Among lawyers there is a saying that Mr. 
Choate's contemporaries divide among them one- 
half of the leading business of the courts, and 
Mr. Choate has the other half to himself. 

In all the important will cases of twenty-five 
years, including tbe litigation over the Van- 
derbilt, Tilden, Stewart, Hoyt, Cruger, Drake 
and Hopkins wills, Mr. Choate appeared. He 
was counsel in the great Huntington case, in 
which a series of actions were brought against 
Collis P. Huntington on account of transac- 
tions in Central Pacific Railroad stock. Roscoe 
Conkling made his first appearance in the State 
courts as Mr. Huntington's counsel. In the 



18 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

case of Richard M. Hunt vs. Mrs. Paran Ste- 
vens Mr. Choate was counsel for the plaintiff. 
In the Maynard election returns cases, involv- 
ing charges of fraud against Judge Maynard; 
in the court martial trials of the Fitz-John 
Porter and Captain McCalla cases; in the in- 
vestigation of the Vigilant- Valkyrie yacht 
contest before the New York Yacht Club; in 
the suit of Hutchinson vs. New York Stock Ex- 
change for reinstatement as a member of the 
Exchange; in the suit of Loubat against the 
Union Club for reinstatement as a member, and 
in many others, Mr. Choate gave notable exhi- 
bitions of his power. 

In the United States Supreme Court the list 
of his notable appearances is a long one. It 
includes the case of Gebhard vs. the Canada 
Southern Railway; the Kansas Prohibition 
case; the case of Neagle, the United States 
marshal who shot Judge Terry in defense of 
Mr. Justice Field, and whom Mr. Choate suc- 
cessfully defended ; the Chinese exclusion cases ; 
the California irrigation cases; the Stan- 
ford will case, involving the fate of the 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 19 

Stanford University ; the Bell Telephone cases ; 
the Behring Sea cases; the income tax cases; 
the Texas trust law case ; the New York Indian 
case; the Berdan Arms case, and the Southern 
Pacific land grant cases, involving the title to 
large areas of Western territory. 

Mr. Choate is famous as a cross-examiner. 
His manner is invariably quiet. He rises and 
advances to the railing as near the witnesses as 
possible. Then he puts his head forward as 
near the witness as he can get it, and begins the 
battle. He never loses his temper and never 
raises his voice. He alwaj's lets tbe witness 
take his own course first, and it is several min- 
utes before he asks a question in which he is 
really interested. If the answer is unsatisfac- 
tory he immediately drops the subject, lets the 
witness wander away for a little while, and 
finally brings him gently back to the same 
question. Again and again he will do this, 
and the circles continually narrow until the 
witness cannot stir, and must either answer the 
question or flatly refuse it. The truth usually 
comes out either way. 



20 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

Mr, Choate's devotion to great corporations 
and to trusts has been purely professional. In 
the freedom of public speaking outside the 
courts he has not hesitated to make them, and 
the financiers who control them, the butts of his 
caustic humor. 

When Mr. Choate left the law schools and 
entered real life he laid out for himself certain 
standards of conduct, which be has maintained 
till the present day. It was even said of him 
that he had a finer moral fiber and a keener 
conscience than his celebrated uncle, Rufus 
Choate, was thought to possess. He had lofty 
conceptions of public duty, and the responsi- 
bilities of governments, from which he has not 
swerved. A Republican he entered life, and a 
Republican he has remained through all the 
momentous struggles and tremendous polit- 
ical issues of the last fifty years, and there are 
probably few men who possess a better concep- 
tion of real Republican principles than this New 
Englander of Salem. 

Mr. Choate's Republicanism has been of that 
robust character which would never be satisfied 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. S7 

with anything but the highest and best in pur- 
poses and methods. He would never indorse 
themaxim that "the end justilies the means," 
however ignoble the means. He often found 
himself in antagonism with those who set 
themselves up as the "bosses" of his party. 
This antagonism has not had the effect, how- 
ever, of weakening his influence, but has made 
him cordially hated by "machine men" of all 
parties. He might have had public offices over 
and over again if he had really wished for them 
and worked for them, but somehow he never 
seemed to care about entering the political 
field. When approached on the matter and 
urged to go in and win, he used to say: "The 
law is a jealous mistress, and will tolerate no 
rival; I love my profession, and, besides, I live 
by it, and I am going to be faithful to it." 

One of his admirers says of him that he has 
been content with the honors of his professional 
successes, and of his appearance in exciting po- 
litical campaigns and in critical stages of the 
municipal affairs of New York City. "When 
the need of his aid is apparent, when a public 



22 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

task worthy of his powers demands atten- 
tion, he is quick to respond," 

He took a prominent part in the municipal 
canvass of 1871, which resulted in the overthrow 
, of the Tweed ring — the ring that had systemat- 
ically plundered the civic treasury. In polit- 
ical life he never hesitated in denouncing 
abuses, and he has been especially eloquent in 
attacking the municipal misgovernment of New 
York. In 1897 ho strongly supported Seth 
Low, and in short belongs to the very highest 
class of public men in America. If he has 
made any political enemies it has been by the 
ruthless severity with which he condemned the 
wire-puller and the boss. 

He never held office, unless his election as 
president of the convention that met in 1894 to 
revise the Constitution of New York State be 
regarded as an exception. He was president of 
the New England Society from 1867 to 1871, 
president of the Harvard Club from 1874 to 
1878, and president of the Union League Club 
from 1873 to 1877. His addresses before these 
various bodies are regarded as uniformly bril- 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 23 

liant efforts, models of eloquence, and abound- 
ing, like his addresses in court, in wit and 
humor. 

In the social world Mr. Choate has exercised 
a leadership comparable with his professional 
supremacy. He maintains active membership 
in many clubs, including the Union League, 
City, University, Metropolitan, Riding, New 
Y ork Athletic and Grolier. He belongs also 
to the Bar Association, the American Society 
of Natural History, the Metropolitan Museum 
of Art, the Century Association, the Dunlop 
Society, and the Down-Town Association. 

Mr. Choate made his first appearance as a 
political orator in New York in the Fremont 
campaign in 1856. His debut as an after- 
dinner speaker was made at a St. George society 
dinner not long thereafter. On both platforms 
he scored an immediate success, and he has 
spoken in every political canvass since, and al- 
most at every public dinner. Mr, Depew has 
said of him: "He is one of the few lawyers 
who has demonstrated his ability to speak with 
equal eloquence from the platform and in the 



24 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

forum. He has a dignified, gracious and com- 
manding presence, added to superior ability, 
great acquirements and oratorical power." 

Mr. Choate's ideal of "success," as drawn 
forth in an interview, is the attainment of a 
large capacity for work — for accomplishment. 
Wealth, leisure, sumptuous surroundings, "the 
contest of idleness, knowing that enough has 
been done" — these, to common minds the mark- 
ings of success, have for him no such signifi- 
cance. There are nobler things to be sought. 
The others are but "trappings, which neither 
add to nor detract from character." He has 
always been an eloquent advocate of social, 
charitable and educational movements. His 
executive abilities are conceded to be great. 
His power of sustained and systematic labor is 
unusual. His cultivation of mind and ur- 
banity of spirit, his geniality and his gift of 
repartee, have given him remarkable popularity. 

During his long residence in New York Mr. 
Choate passed his summers in a beautiful house 
that was elected for him in 1885, by Sandford 
White, in the village of Stockbridge, in the fa- 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK- 25 

mous Berkshire Hills, in the western part of 
Massachusetts. Stockbridge is five miles south 
of Lenox. There are fewer people and less ex- 
citement there than in Lenox, and for that rea- 
son he selected that place in preference to the 
latter, so as to get away from people and not 
continue the winter life all through the sum- 
mer. Besides, he considered Stockbridge the 
prettiest village in New England. He re- 
mained away from New York for three months. 
As he modestly said : "The courts are closed 
during the summer months, and I am no longer 
of any use in our office." 

He is a pilgrim of the Pilgrims, and nothing 
appears to arouse his patriotic spirit like the 
forefathers of his beloved New England. He 
has given to literature two large and well- 
written volumes on the history of the Pilgriin 
Fathers. His favorite studies are constitu- 
tional law and English and French history. 
His favorite authors are George Eliot and 
Thackeray. He likes William Dean Ho wells 
as a novelist, and is a great novel reader. He 
reads al most everything. In his workroom have 



26 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

been noticed these books: "The Rise of Silas 
Lapham," "Cicero on the Immortality of the 
Soul," Smollet's translation of "Gil Bias of 
Santillane," Demogeot's "Historie de la Liter- 
ature Frangaise," and James Freeman Clarke's 
"Common Sense in Religion." On Mr. Choate's 
mantelpiece are four busts of old Emperor Wil- 
liam, Von Moltke, Emperor Frederick and Bis- 
marck. With them are five old-fashioned beer 
mugs, and a long German pipe hangs on the 
wall. A passion and a pleasure with him is 
the collecting of manuscripts of famous law- 
3'ers. In his office and in his library at home 
are scores of specimens from the quills of Chief 
Justice Marshall, John Jay, William Pinck- 
ney, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, Daniel 
Webster, Rufus Choate, and many other legal 
luminaries of the first magnitude. 

Mr. Choate has a splendid physique, and a 
large, intelligent face. He has brown hair and 
light brown eyes; his forehead is broad, but 
not very high. His voice is tenor in quality, 
musical, flexible, under control and effective, 
especially when used in sarcasm. He is alwaj^s 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 27 

at ease, stands unpretentiously, sometimes with 
a hand in his trouser's pocket, or a thumb and 
forefinger thrust into the vest pocket after the 
English fashion. Affability and dignity char- 
acterize his bearing always. He has fewer 
wrinkles than most men twenty years his ju- 
nior. The secret of this is perhaps that he has 
never been in a hurry — that he has never known 
what it is to worry. Unlike the majority of the 
Americans, he has never known what it is to 
"hustle," and struggle morning, noon and 
night, but goes steadily through life, working 
hard, and always looking on the bright side. 

He believes in happiness and good cheer as 
promoters of longevity, and we would judge 
him as one of those New England pilgrims — 
"who meet annually at Delmonico's to drown 
the sorrows and sufferings of their ancestors in 
the flowing bowl, and to contemplate their own 
virtues in the mirror of history." 



28 THE CIIOATE STORY BOOK. 



11. 

IN JEST AND EARNEST. 



YALE AND HARVARD. 

Somebody said at a college dinner : "Why, 
Yale is everywhere!" "Yes," interjected 
Choate, "and she always finds Harvard there 
when she arrives." 



HASH. 

Mr. Choate went into a restaurant and asked 
a waiter what they bad for dinner. "Every- 
thing," roared the waiter. "Bring it in," was 
Mr. Choate's reply. "One order of hash," 
yelled the waiter, and Mr. Choate fainted. 



FEMALE BEAUTY. 
"Now," said Mr. Choate, glancing up ad- 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 29 

miringly at the ladies' gallery at Delmonico's, 
abloom with lovely women, "now I understand 
what the Scripture phrase means: 'Thou 
madest man a little lower than the angels.' " 



ON HIS AMBASSADOESHIP. 

"I doubt if any man ever before found his 
countrymen so glad to get rid of him. As to 
my recent appointment, I've been told that I 
resembled the English convicts who are sent to 
Botany Bay, in that I am sent abroad for my 
country's good." 



EMBAERASSED, 

Mr. Choate was embarrassed only once in his 
long legal career. That was when in a New 
York courtroom, a large, rotund and grateful 
black woman, for whom he won an important 
case, ran at him to bestow a thankful kiss on 
his lips. 



ON JUDICIAL LEARNING. 

In a Cooper Institute meeting the discussion 



30 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

was about Tammany's judicial nomination of 
a wealthy young man. Mr. Choate spoke of 
the nominee in the most friendly terms, but 
added: "Yes, he is a capable j^oung man. In 
his term of fourteen years he will learn enough 
to be a judge." 



PLAIN LIVING. 

At a college dinner Mr. Choate was called 
upon to speak from Wordsworth's famous line : 
"Plain living and high thinking are no more." 

Mr. Choate said: "Plain living is hard to un- 
dertake in these days of luxury, and high 
thinking is very painful in these times, when 
the average man gets his ideas for the daj' from 
his morning newspaper." 



ON GENERAL GRANT. 

Mr. Choate can rise to flights of eloquence. 
"How," he asked, in introducing General 
Grant, "could the United States of America be 
so fitly represented and responded to as by that 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 31 

great soldier, who long ago spoke for her at the 
cannon's mouth, in thunder tones tha.t still echo 
around the globe. " 



BOYS WHO GO WRONG. 

"I have heard it said among young men and 
boys that they do not have the chance now that 
their fathers had — that the great corporations 
are destroying the chances of the young man. 
But no matter v/hat the conditions are there 
seems to be a percentage of boj's who are des- 
tined to go wrong." 



MONEY AND INSURANCE. 

Concerning mutual insurance companies, Mr. 
Choate said in an argument before the Supreme 
Court: "The modern insurance company is a 
moneyed monster. It lives upon money; it 
swallows money ; it digests money ; it breathes 
money ; it lays golden eggs by the basket, and 
then wraps a few of its coils around them and 
hatches them into fresh accumulations." 



32 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

ON RUFUS CHOATE. 
Mr. Choate, speaking at the unveiling of his 
uncle, Rufus Choate, the orator and patriot, 
said: "His greatness should be ascribed to the 
study of the Bible. His nurture began with 
that well-thumbed, dog's-eared Bible which, so 
early absorbed and never forgotten, saturated 
his mind and spirit more than all other books 
combined." 



SEATS FOR THE MIGHTY. 

A pompous young man bustled into his office. 
"This Mr. Choate?" "Yes," responded the 
distinguished lawyer, with his blandest smile. 
"Well, I'm Mr. Wilberforce, of Wilberforce 
& Jones." "Take a chair, sir," said Choate, 
with a wave of his hand. "My father was a 

cousin of Bishop Wilberforce, and I " 

"Take two chairs," said Mr. Choate. 



AFTER-DINNER ORATORY. 

At a dinner of the St, Nicholas Club, to an 
anecdote about himself told by Dr. Depew, 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 33 

Mr. Choate retorted: "I've heard Depew hailed 
as the greatest after-dinner speaker in America. 
If after-dinner speaking is, as I believe it is 
defined, the art of saying nothing at all, then 
Dr. Depew is the most marvelous speaker in 
the universe." 



A MOUNTAIN OF DEBT. 

In the suit of Hunt, the great architect, 
against Mrs. Paran Stevens, Mr. Choate dwelt 
upon her humble origin and her successive rises 
in the social world, concluding with, "At last 
the arm of royalty was bent to receive her 
gloved hand, and how, gentlemen of the jury, 
did she reach this imposing eminence?" 
(Pause.) "Upon a mountain of unpaid bills." 



THE PILGRIM MOTHERS. 

In joking he spares not even his own ances- 
tors. The Choate family is one of the oldest in 
New England, yet Mr. Choate said at a New 
England Society dinner : 

"The Pilgrim fathers had a great deal to 



34 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

endure ; but the}' were not the greatest heroes 
in New England. Consider the burden that was 
borne by the Pilgrim mothers. They had to 
endure, not only the snow-bound wilderness 
and the cruel Indians, but the Pilgrim fathers 
also, compared with which all other discom- 
forts were nothing," 



MRS. CHOATE'S SECOND HUSBAND. 

One of his wittiest sayings was made over a 
private dinner table, at which he and Mrs. 
Choate were guests. Some one inquired of him 
who he would like to be if he could not be him- 
self. He paused a few seconds, as if thinking 
over the list of the world's celebrities, and then 
his eye rested upon his wife. "If," he an- 
swered, "I could not be myself, I should like 
to be Mrs. Choate's second husband." 



LEGAL WIT. 

In the Stokes trial A. B. Boardman, the op- 
posing attorney, said: "My client is tired of 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 35 

lawyers. They have cheated him enough, and 
now he prefers to put the matter before a jury." 
"I hope," said Choate, with his suave tone 
so well known, "that my brother has done 
nothing to forfeit his client's confidence," and 
even the grave justices had to smile, while 
Boardman bit his lip. 



ON THE FUTURE OF AMERICA. 
Mr. Choate saj's: "The life and power and 
progress of America have just begun. I have 
heard it said there was no chance for our boys 
to succeed and rise in life now on account of 
the consolidation and concentration of enter- 
prises in great organizations. I think there 
never was such a prospect before as there is in 
our country to-day. A new era of prosperity 
and progress has opened that- will outshine any- 
thing recorded in the annals of our history." 



RUSSELL SAGE. 
"Speak louder, Mr. Sage," said Mr. Choate 
to the aged financier when he had him on the 



36 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

stand in the Laidlaw suit. "Speak as loud as 
if you were buying 1,000 shares of Missouri, 
Kansas and Texas on the Stock Exchange," 

Mr. Choate, on that occasion, took Mr. Sage 
back to his boyhood days, when he traded jack- 
knives and various knick nacks. 

"Were you as clever, Mr. Sage," asked Mr. 
Choate, "in trading buttons as you are now re- 
puted to be in trading railroads?" 



REBUKING A CHIEF JUSTICE. 

Mr. Choate is a brave man. In the Supreme 
Court, general term, Avhen he was arguing an 
important case. Chief Justice Van Brunt 
wheeled around in his chair and began a chat 
with Justice Andrews. Mr. Choate ceased 
speaking; Justice Van Brunt turned and looked 
inquiringly. 

"Your honor," said Mr. Choate, "I have just 
forty minutes in which to make my final argu- 
ment. I shall need not only every second of 
that time to do it justice, but I shall also need 
your undivided attention." 

He got it. 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 37 

CHOATE AND DEPEW. 

In replying to a toast at a public dinner Mr. 
Clioate said: "A reporter asked me last week 
for this speech. I told him I had no copy. How 
can I make an after-dinner speech before din- 
ner? Said he: 'Well, we have Mr. Depew's in 
cold type.'" Mr. Depew spoke shortly after. 
"The reporter," he said, "called on me and 
said, as to Choate, 'I have them all,' but also 
added, 'Have you any poetry in yours?' Said 
I, 'No.' 'Well,' said he, 'Choate has.' And 
after reading it I came to the conclusion that 
he must have written it himself." 



ON MR. DEPEW. 

A little girl being sent to spend the afternoon 
with friends was told to be seen and not heard. 
When the child came back she said she had 
been very good — had said nothing, but listened 
to everything. "And now, dear mamma," 
asked this little chit, "what is a Chauncey- 
Depew that everybody was talking about?" 

"That little girl's mother," Mr. Choate con- 



38 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK 

eluded, "looked at her darling and then said, 
deprecatingly : 'Ah, my dear little one, you are 
not old enough to understand those things 

yet.'" 

MILLIONAIRES. 

At a charity entertainment Mr. Choate said : 
"Pick out your millionaires — and there are 
twelve hundred of them in this city. Their 
money is corrupting them and their families all 
the time. Each one of j^ou pick out your mil- 
lionaire, take him by the throat, and ask him 
for his money. 

"Of course," he added, chuckling, "you may 
think it a little humiliating to ask a rich man 
to disgorge his money. I have not foimd it so 
myself. But don't approach him through his 
wife. Let some other man's wife go to him." 



A HOME BEYOND THE GRAVE. 

When arguing an inheritance case his oppo- 
nent made one or two rude thrusts against him. 
Mr. Choate thereupon arose quietly and said : 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 39 

"My esteemed friend's castigation makes me 
take a brotherly interest in the man who said 
he bad bought a bouse on the other side of 
Greenwood Cemetery because he wanted a 
home beyond the grave." The opposing law- 
yer collapsed, because he lived not far from 
Greenwood, and his dead client had had any- 
thing but a home on earth. 



ON PENUKIOUSNESS. 

"It has been said that a man, if he is ever 
going to save anything, must begin before he is 
thirty, even if he laj^s up only a little at a 
time. It is equally certain that if a man if 
ever going to extend a helping hand to charity 
he must begin about the same age. But when 
he does not begin right the habit of closeness 
grows with his age. and he gets worse and 
worse as he grows older. That's the reason 
why you find so many curmudgeons in New 
York. To approach them for money brings a 
quaking and terror to their hearts and pocket- 
books. " 



40 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

WINNING A VERDICT. 

Mr. Choate tried a case involving $6,000,000. 
He had the jur}^ with him from that moment 
in his opening when he said : 

"You are here to determine which of two 
men is the rightful owner of six millions of 
dollars. There is no opportunit}' for an appeal 
to your sympathies. It is not a case of rich 
against poor, capital against labor, power 
against weakness." 

Then he described his own client as a pru- 
dent, solid, substantial business man, and his 
opponent in the suit as a citizen of San Fran- 
cisco, where "he owns many houses, many rail- 
roads, many banks, many newspapers, many 
judges, many legislatures." 



THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT. 

In the summing up of one of the numerous 
phases of the Paran Stevens estate litigations, 
Mr. Choate said: "For the last week, gentle- 
men of the jury, we have been engaged here in 
bitter contest. It has tired us all. Coming by my 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 41 

children's nursery door this morning it was 
soothing to the ear to hear the children recite 
the nursery ballad of the 'House that Jack 
Built,' for this, gentlemen, is the house that 
Jack built. My client (Architect Hunt) is the 
unfortunate Jack, and (with a deferential bow 
to Mrs. Stevens) the lady in the case may be 
called the 'maiden that milked the cow with 
the crumpled horn,' which might stand for the 
somewhat crumpled Stevens estate." 



RETORT OF A WITNESS. 

Mr. Choate tells of the only time his serenity 
was ever ruffled when cross-questioning a wit- 
ness. It was during a famous will case, and 
Felix McClusky, formerly doorkeeper of the 
House of Representatives, was the witness. 

"Now, Mr. McClusky," insinuatively asked 
Mr. Choate, "isn't it true that you are the mod- 
ern Munchausen?" 

"You're the second blackguard that has 
asked me that in a week, " roared McClusky. 

"An' " The roar of laughter, in which the 

surrogate himself joined, drowned the re- 



42 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK, 

mainder of Mr. McClusky's retort, and it was 
fully five minutes before business went on 
again. 



ON LORD ABERDEEN. 
A characteristic remark of Mr. Cboate was 
made about Lord Aberdeen at a dinner in New 
York, where the then Governor-General of Can- 
ada was the principal guest, appearing in kilts, 
in honor of his Scotch entertainers. Aberdeen 
bad made a neat speech, and the applause had 
hardly ceased when Choate was introduced, 
and proceeded to say some complimentary 
things of the last speaker and to declare that 
if he had known that he was to be permitted to 
sit next to his distinguished Scotch friend, the 
Governor-General of Canada^ "this Gordon of 
the Gordons," he, too, would have come with- 
out his trousers. It was audacious, but the 
kilted guest was soonest to catch its humor and 
led the laughter it produced. 



NATURAL GAS. 
"There is a town in western New York," 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 43 

says Channcey M. Depew, "that bears my 
name, and in this town some persons by boring 
tapped a natural gas well, and thereupon 
formed 'The Depew Natural Gas Company, 
Limited.' Mr. Choate and I met shortly after 
this on a public occasion, when both were set 
down for speeches. He had the last word. 
Afer dealing with other matters he drew from 
his pocket the prospectus of the gas company 
and read it. Then he looked the company over, 
looked at me, and reading the title at the head 
of the prospectus, queried with quiet emphasis: 
"Why limited?" 



ON CLARENCE COOK. 
In the Cesnola libel case, which raised the 
question of the authenticity of the collection of 
antiquities stored in the Museum of Art in Cen- 
tral Park, Mr. Choate was counsel for General 
Cesnola. Clarence Cook, the art critic, was on 
the stand, and his evidence bore strongly 
against Choate' s client. During the cross- 
examination he developed points which tended to 
discredit Mr. Cook's testimony. Turning upon 



i 



44 THE CIIOATE STORY BOOK. 

the witness and shaking a quivering forefinger 
at him, the advocated quoted with dramatic 
emphasis: 

"False, fleeting, perjured Clarence!" 



FAMILY PRAYERS. 

In the million-dollar Hurl hurt inheritance 
case he tangled up a witness in a maze of con- 
tradictions, finally saying: "Then 3'ou told a 
falsehood simply because j'ou thought it cus- 
tom ar}'." 

"Well, if you keep forcing me, I will have 
to keep going in a circle to explain," answered 
Mr. Hurlburt. 

"Go ahead," retorted Choate. "I'll follow 
you to the end." 

"To the end of a circle?" murmured Lawyer 
Parsons, Choate' s opponent. 

But Choate retaliated the next day, when a 
witness testified that the Hurlburt family had 
family prayers morning and night. 

"Family prayers?" repeated Parsons in a 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 45 

questioning tone. "Familj^ prayers," repeated 
the witness. 

"Yes," continued Choate, "don't you know 
what they are, Brother Parsons?" 



LETTERS OF INTRODUCTION. 

The clerks in Mr. Choate's law office were 
one day discussing in his presence the right 
method of ohtaining success for the young man 
who should come unheralded to New York. 
The value of letters of introduction formed the 
chief topic. There were divers opinions. Mr. 
Choate was inclined to throw doubt on the val- 
ue of letters of introduction. He said that when 
he came to New York many years ago he 
brought with him but a single letter of intro- 
duction, and he thought he had made a certain 
amount of progress. 

This sounded well until some one spoke up 
and said: "But just what was your letter, Mr. 
Choate?" "Well," he said, "it was a letter 
from Rufus Choate to William M. Evarts." 



46 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

A DEBT OF GKATITUDE. 

lb was in the course of the celebrated trial of 
Huntington, Hopkins, Crocker and Stanford, 
the *'big four" of the Pacific coast, that Mr. 
Choate paid his famous compliment to Conkling 
— a tribute which the ex-senator deeply appre- 
ciated, coming as it did at a time when Mr. 
Conkling, just defeated for re-election, had 
taken up the practice of law in New York, in 
hopes of earning monej" enough to pay his debts 
and die even with the world. 

"However we may differ," said Mr. Choate, 
"one from another, or all of us from him, we 
owe the senator one debt of gratitude for stand- 
ing always steadfast and incorruptible in the 
halls of corruption. Shadrach, Meshech and 
Abeduego won immortal glory for passing one 
day in the fiery furnace ; but he has been twenty 
years there and has come out without even a 
smell of smoke upon his garments." 



OK KOSCOE CONKLING. 

In a great railroad case Roscoe Conkling 
provoked much laughter by reading aloud a 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 47 

newspaper description of Mr. Choate. He re- 
plied : 

"I do not like to lie under this imputation, 
and I will return it. But, gentlemen, not from 
any newspaper. Oh , no ! I will paint his pic- 
ture as it has been painted by an immortal pen. 
I will give you a description of him as the di- 
vine Shakespeare painted it, for he must have 
had my learned friend in his eye when he said ; 

" ' See what a grace is seated on his brow; 
Hyperion's curl the front of Jove himself; 
An eye, like Mars, to threaten and command — 
A combination and a form indeed. 
Where every god did seem to set his seal, 
To give the world assurance of a man. ' " 

The laugh now was twice as great as the 
first. 



NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTISM. 

With all his pleasantries Mr. Choate is still 
the New Englander of conscience, culture and 
fervent patriotism, and the manner in which he 
blends these qualities with his humorous utter- 



48 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

ances is sometimes most delightful. Take, for 
example, bis introduction of General Sherman. 
*'I do not know," said he, "that the great gen- 
eral of our armies drew his first breath upon 
New England soil, but this I know, that he 
has eaten so good a share of so many New Eng- 
land dinners that a full current of New England 
blood must now iiow in his veins. He was a 
leader of New England 'hosts' long before he 
ate his first dish of pork and beans at your ta- 
ble. When following the glorious soul of John 
Brown that always marched on before, he led 
his battalions of Yankees through Georgia, 
from Atlanta to the sea, he was writing a gen- 
uine chapter of the Pilgrim's Progress.''' 



THE SALOON. 

Speaking at a meeting of the Church Tem- 
perance Society, Mr. Choate said : 

"As I understand it, the special work of the 
society which I am to present is its desire to 
resist the evil influences of the saloons, which 
have been the curse of this city for so many 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK- 49 

years, and continue so yet. There are more 
than 7,500 saloons, and each represents damage 
to families incalculable. I believe that more 
money is spent for drink in this city than for 
food or for the education of children. The law 
can attend to the reduction of the number of 
saloons, but it cannot prevent the debauching 
of politics, disgrace of families, and ruin to the 
community which is accomplished through 
them." 



ON WILLIAM M. EVAETS. 

Sometimes, when in a desperately wicked 
humor, Mr. Choate told this story at Senator 
Evart's expense: He was trying a case invofv- 
ing immense financial transactions, and felt un- 
willing to leave his client's fate to his own un- 
aided judgment. So he brought Mr. Evarts 
into court with him. The senator never spoke 
aloud at all, but his whispered suggestions 
were invaluable. When the case was over, 
one ot the 3'oung men attached to their office 
asked a juryman what he thought of Mr. 
Evarts. 



50 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

"Who's he?" asked the juror. 

"Great heavens!" cried the young man, 
"don't you know William M. Evarts?" 

"Dunno's I do," hopelessly respended the 
juror. 

The clerk gave a gasp of amazement. 
"There he is," he said, "talking to Mr. Beach." 

"Oh, him? Him with the long nose? Don't 
think much of him. The only thing he said 
was 'I object,' and hanged if I couldn't have 
said that much." 



IN THE SUPREME COURT. 

In the New York Supreme Court one day 
Mr. Choate asked for the postponement of the 
trial of an action because' he was at that mo- 
ment engaged in a trial in the surrogate's 
court. He askod the judge to let his case go 
over until he had finished in the surrogate's 
court. He had just come across the corridor 
bareheaded from that court. 

"No," replied the judge, "this case has been 
kept waiting long enough. The trial must pro- 
ceed now." 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 51 

"But I cannot leave in the midst of a trial 
before the surrogate," expostulated Mr, Choate. 

"I shall order this trial to proceed at once," 
exclaimed the judge snappishly. 

"Your honor," said Mr. Choate, speaking 
slowly and with icy politeness," your honor un- 
doubtedly has the physical power to order me to 
proceed with this trial forthwith, but your 
honor has not the legal power to order me." 

The judge became very red, and immediately 
granted the adjournment. 



ON VAMPIRES. 

One of Mr. Choate' s friends describes a scene 
before Judge Freedman some years ago. The 
counsel for tho plaintiff, John E. Parsons, de- 
nounced the defendant insurance company as 
"vampires, bloodless monsters that feed on the 
blood of the people," etc. It was a savage ad- 
dress of the old-fashioned style. When Mr. 
Parsons sat down the courtroom seemed to buzz. 
Mr. Chonte was lying back in his chair, with 
his eyes to the ceiling and his hands in his 
pocket. "Mr. Choate, it is your turn," said 



52 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

the judge, and Mr, Choate arose, still with his 
hands in his pockets. "If yonr honor please, 
and gentlemen of the jury," said he, "do you 
know what a vampire really is? Look at the 
Quaker gentleman who is the president of this 
company. He sits there in his Quaker clothes 
and white neckcloth. Look at that innocent 
young man, his attorney, who sits next him and 
has a smile on his face. You thought vampires 
were something out of the way when Brother 
Parsons descrihed them, but these are regular, 
genuine vampires." 

The excitement of the spectators merged into 
a laugh and then into a feeling friendly to the 
speaker. 



THE LEGAL PROFESSION. 

At an annual banquet of the American Bar 
Association in Chicago, responding to the toast, 
"Our Profession," Mr. Choate said: 

"We love the law because among all the 
learned professions it is the only one that in- 
volves the study and the pursuit of a stable and 
exact science. 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 53 

"Theology was once considered an immuta- 
ble science, but how it has changed from age 
to age! 

"And then as to medicine, how its practice 
and its theories succeed each other in rapid 
revolution, so that what were good methods 
and healing doses and saving prescriptions a 
generation ago are now condemned, and all the 
past is adjudged to be empirical! 

"Meanwhile, common law, like a nursing 
father, makes void the part where the fault is 
and preserves the rest, as it has been doing for 
centuries. 

"So long as the Supreme Court exists to be 
attacked and defended—that sheet anchor of our 
liberties and of our government; so long as the 
public credit and good faith of this great nation 
are in peril; so long as the right of property, 
which lies at the root of all civil government, 
is scouted, and the three inalienable rights to 
life, to liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, 
which the 'Declaration of Independence' pro- 
claimed and the Constitution has guaranteed 
alike against the action of Congress and of the 



54 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK 

States, are in jeopardy, so long will great pub- 
lic service be demanded of tlie bar» " 



ON PORTER i^ND DEPEW. 

At a New England Society dinner General 
Porter and Mr. Depew were both present. Mr 
Choate's face fairly beamed with delight as he 
extended to them a greeting that brought down 
the house. "I am sure," he said, "you would 
not allow me to quit this pleasing programme 
if I did not felicitate you upon the presence of 
two other gentlemen — those twin-rail fellows, 
well met at every festive board, without whom 
no banquet is ever complete. I mean, of course 
Mr. Depew and General Porter. Their splen- 
did efforts on a thousand fields like this have 
fairly won their golden spurs. I forget whether 
it is Pj'thagoras or Emerson who finally de- 
cided that the soul of mankind is located in the 
stomach, but these two gentlemen, certainly, by 
their achievements on such arenas as this, have 
demonstrated at least this rule of anatomy, that 
the pyloric orifice is the shortest cut to the human 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 55 

brain. Their well-won title of first of dinner 
orators is the true survival of the fittest, for I 
assure you that their triumphant struggles in 
all these many years at scenes like this would 
long ago have laid all the rest of us under the 
table, if not under the sod. And so I think in 
your names I may bid them welcome, thrice 
welcome — duo fulmina belli.'''' 



THE ALIBI. 
In nearly all his Supreme Court cases Mr. 
Choate has enlivened the proceedings by his 
witty speeches. One of the best remembered of 
these was in the case of David Stewart against 
Collis P. Huntington for the payment of a 
large sum of money, which Stewait claimed 
was due him under an agreement with Hunt- 
ington for the purchase of certain Central Pa- 
cific stock. Mr. Choate appeared for the plain- 
tiff. Roscoe Conkling was on the other side, 
and he insisted that Huntington was not re- 
sponsible for what his associates might have 
done on the Pacific coast. On this point Mr. 
Choate said to the jury : 



56 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

"It reminds me, gentlemen, of an alibi that 
was introduced in another famous case. You 
remember when Mr. Tony Weller was called 
in consultation about the defense of Mr. Pick- 
wick, in whose arms the fair widow who sued 
him had been found dissolving in tears, and he 
said : ' Sammy, my advice to you is to prove an 
alibi. Some, when brought to trial, believe in 
character and some in an alibi, but I advise 
you to stick to an alibi.' 

"Tbis double of Mr. Huntington under whose 
cover he exists and is in two places at the same 
time, upontbe Atlantic and Pacific — my distin- 
guished friend said it was a romance — the con- 
nection between him and Mark Hopkins — I 
thought, gentlemen, of that other romance, the 
story of 'My Double, and How He Undid Me,' 
and it seems that the defendant was then to 
undo him in this case — this Mark Hopkins, by 
whom he was represented absolutely, com- 
pletely, and without any limitation whatever, 
so tbat you might say that when Mr. Hunting- 
ton took snuff on the Atlantic coast Mr. Hop- 
kins sneezed on tbe Pacific." 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 57 

ON THE PILGRIMS. 
Here is one of his glowing periods, the pero- 
ration of a New England dinner speech : 
"When that little company of Nonconformists 
at Scrooby, with Elder Willam Brewster at 
their head, having lost all but conscience and 
honor, took their lives in their hands and fled 
to Protestant Holland, seeking nothing but free- 
dom to worship God in their own way, and to 
earn their scanty bread by the sweat of their 
brows; when they toiled and worshipped there 
at Leyden for twelve long suffering years; 
when at last, longing for a larger liberty, they 
crossed the raging Atlantic in that crazy little 
bark that bore at the peak the Cross of St. 
George, the sole emblem of their country and 
their hopes; when they landed in the dead of 
winter on a stern and rockbound coast; when 
they saw, before the spring came round, half of 
the number of their dear comrades perish of 
cold and want; when they knew not where to 
lay their heads — 

They little thought how clear a light 

With years should gather round this day, 

How love sliould keep their memories bright, 
How wide a realm their sons should sway. 



58 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

"How the clay and the place should be honored 
as the source from which true liberty derived 
its birth, and how at last a nation of fifty mil- 
lions of freemen should bend in homage over 
their shrine. We honor them for their daunt- 
less courage, for their sublime virtue, for their 
self-denial, for their hard work, for their com- 
mon sense, for their ever-living sense of duty, 
for their fear of God that cast out all other 
fears, and for their raging thirst for liberty. In 
common with all those generations through 
which we trace our proud lineage to their 
hardy stock, we owe a great share of all that 
we have achieved, and all that we enjoy of 
strength, of freedom, of prosperity, to their 
matchless virtue and their grand example. So 
long as America continues to love truth and . 
duty, so long as she cherishes liberty and jus- 
tice, she will never tire of hearing the praises 
of the Pilgrims, or of heaping fresh incense 
upon their altar." 



RICHARD CROKER.. 

In a New York State political campaign 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 69 

Richard Croker gave a number of iiiterviews 
to the newspapers. Mr. Choate replied to them 
at a mass meeting in Chickering Hall. He 
said : 

"This cordial reception that you have given 
to me is almost as great a compliment as I re- 
ceived last week from the unctuous lips of Mr. 
Croker .himself ; for I must say that I regard it 
as the highest compliment for any respectable 
citizen to be abused by him. And tbere is a 
great deal that hangs on the fact that Mr. Cro- 
ker for the first time in this campaign has 
opened his lips. The dumb has spoken. He 
never speaks when things are going in a waj^ 
that suits him. He has never been known to, 
and I ask you why it is that this shrewd and 
calculating politician at this late hour in the 
campaign has found it necessary to open his 
lips. 

"Well, this audience looks to me like a 
good, old-fashioned audience who remember 
things they have read in the Bible. Croker's 
speech and why he spoke recall to my mind the 
familiar story of Balaam's ass. And in two or 



60 THE CIIOATE STORY BOOK. 

three points Mr. Croker reminds us of that very 
celebrated beast of burden. In the first place, 
until the ass spoke, nobody in the world imag- 
ined what a perfect ass he was. If he had not 
spoken he would have passed into history as an 
average, ordinary, silent ass who carried Ba- 
laam on his way; but when he spoke he was 
distinguished over all other asses in the land. 

"But that is not the only way in which Mr. 
Croker recalls that story. Why did the ass 
speak? Do you remenrber the stor}'? It was 
because he was frightened. It was because he 
got, as the Bible says, into a tight place, where 
he could turn neither "to the right nor to the left. 
And in that situation, when he saw before him 
one who bore a flaming sword confronting him, 
at last the ass spoke; and it was in the same 
tight place that Croker spoke, when at last he 
was afraid of him who bore a flaming sword. 
You can tell who the young man is who bore 
the flaming sword that makes Croker afraid." 



OLD IRELAND. 

Mr. Choate seems to have an utter disregard 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 61 

for consequences. At the dinner of the Friendly 
Sons of St. Patrick, in the evening of March 
17, 1893, he said: 

"But, gentlemen, now that you have done so 
much for America — now that you have made it 
all your own — what do you propose to do for 
Ireland? How long do you propose to let her 
be the political football of England? Poor, 
downtrodden, oppressed Ireland! 'Hereditary 
bondsmen ! Know ye not, who would be free 
themselves must strike the blow?' 

"You have learned how to govern by making 
all the soil of other countries your own. Have 
you not learned how to govern at home; how 
to make Ireland a land of home rule? 

"There's a cure for Ireland's woes and fee- 
bleness to-day. It is a strong measure that I 
advocate. I propose that you shall all, with 
3'our wives and your children and your chil- 
dren's children, with the spoils that you have 
taken from America in your hands, set your 
faces homeward, laud there, and strike the 
blow ! 

"Think what it would mean for both coun- 



62 THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 

tries if all the Irishmen of America, from the 
Atlantic to the Pacific, should shoulder their 
muskets and march to the relief of their native 
land! 

"Then, indeed, would Ireland be for Irish- 
men and America for Americans! 

"As you landed, the Grand Old Man would 
come down to receive you with pseans of as- 
sured victory. As you departed, the Repub- 
licans would go down to see you off and to bid 
you a joyful farewell. Think of the song you 
could raise: 'We are coming, Father Gladstone, 
15,000,000 strong!' 

"How the British lion would hide his dimin- 
ished head ! For such an array would not only 
rule Ireland, but all other sections of the Brit- 
ish Empire. What could stand before you? 

* ' It would be a terrible blow to us. It would 
take us a great while to recover. Feebly, im- 
perfectly, we should look about us and learn 
for the first time in seventy-five years how to 
govern New York without j'ou. But there 
would be a bond of brotherhood between the 
two nations. Up from the whole soil of Ire- 



THE CHOATE STORY BOOK. 63 

land, np from the whole soil of America would 
rise one paean — Erin go bragh." 

That speech kept Mr. Choate in hot water 
for years. He never qualified it; never ex- 
plained or modified it. It made him the target 
for much criticism. 



THE END. 



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